We were lucky to catch up with Sne Dladla recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sne, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
Coming from KZN, you’d expect me to be nowhere near the arts. The traditional sentiment is that, the arts is simply for fun. It could never be a career. Majority of black parents, especially in a Zulu household, believe in the same thing. I am one of the very few who were fortunate enough to be raised in a different direction. What my parents always instilled in us was a very simple lesson, If you have a plan and you can show them the plan, we have their full support.
Growing up my parents refused to help us find a solution to not all but many of the problems we had. Their approach was to make us into problem solvers. Before the internet, my father would tell us to go speak to a teacher at school in order to find the tools we needed to figure it out or to go to the library as the books would equip us with the necessary knowledge. Once we found what we were looking for, my father would challenge us with another problem to test that we did indeed find the solution and could produce another success result.
My mother was known to be the tenderness of the house but the enforcer of punishment if we ever stepped out of line. If we were ever looking for a result to an action, she would gladly be the result we were looking for. What my mother did flawlessly was to push us to think and how to create order. A lesson she often shared with me, was the lesson of using what you have. To never compare but to make the most of what we have. Knowing that she had a lot on her hands as a teacher, she didn’t have time to take care of the household and to be involved in her children’s lives as much as she wished. She ran the household like a company. Every person reported to her with regards to what chores they had to deliver. Even the garden was broken up into four. Each child had their own garden to take care of and she would do an inspection every weekend. Should it be that you didn’t do your job, you weren’t rewarded. As we lived in the same house, it was a lot more painful to observe your siblings getting a reward and you didn’t as it happened in front of you.
My parents ran our household with love but ran it like a company. They raised a family of problem solvers. Whenever any of us hit a roadblock, none of us call our parents or siblings to a solution. Calling for help is the absolute last, last, last, last resort. We’ve learned how to run our businesses along as running a household through them. Of course none of us are perfect and we’ll see issues along the way but I can guarantee that the base could never have been built stronger.
Sne, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
In introducing myself I often start by stating that I’m from KZN, the last born of 7 and an individual who loves to express ideas and thoughts through artistic means. I start there as I believe that we are also all a result of our life journeys. I have always had a love for the arts, I never knew what to call it but wherever the music was, I was there. If there was a show I was there. If we were playing games that needed the imagination, I was there. Wherever the fun was, is where you would find Sne.
I often remember three moments in my life that confirmed that I born to be a part of the arts. I remember watching Barry Hilton growing up. As a child I enjoyed what he was doing on stage and wanted to do the same. It felt like someone sharing their thoughts for others to enjoy and to become happy through. The second time is when I saw Hamlet at Hilton College in PMB. I didn’t understand a word but I watched the show through body language. The lights, physical performance, set and staging blew me away. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. The last being the most important to me. I saw my sister do a monologue in front of the whole school. She hadn’t written it herself and put such passion behind it. I remember watching her and looking at the school hall filled with other kids. It was quiet. People were listening and drawn in. I wanted to do that. I wanted to share my deepest thoughts and emotions and have people agree in understanding. Because in those moments, we are no longer a room of different individuals. We all become that single thought and feeling.
This fire caused me to write my first every script in grade 9. To date, I remember the title: “Black People”. The title however had nothing to do with the content, I must admit. I remember people laughing and talking about the show after school. I knew then that this is where I’d like to be. This lead me to take drama in Grade 10 in a different school. As I was new, I was a bit shy. To date I thank my teacher Mrs Maree who called my parents in and told them that I am talented, but I just need to let go and have fun. After that meeting I did just that. My marks showed that I should focus on the arts, I applied to go to Rhodes University and got in for Drama. I didn’t finish studying however as I thought that the work experience matters more than the degree, for me. So far, it has been true.
Getting into the actual industry has been nothing short of a necessary difficult journey. The stats say that only 2% of artists actually make it every year. This is a very scary stat. I was fortunate enough to have worked with Andrew Buckland who opened a door for me and I ran with it. I had told him that I always wanted to perform a one man show. We were chatting back stage before a show at the National Arts Festival. Little did I know that he knew Rob Van Vuuren and Siv Ngesi personally. Told me that he’ll get me a gig. The very next day, he told me that he had an opportunity for me to perform at a show that Siv and Rob were a part of. I jumped on the opportunity. I had no idea what I would do, but I took the opportunity. I had about an hour to prepare. I wrote some ideas down and just ran with it. That was the very first time I ever got on stage and performed alone to about 150 people. I was met with love and an applause I was never ready for. This was the final confirmation. Rob and Siv then produced my first one man show where I won a Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award. This lead to me meeting Nicholas Ellenbogen in Cape Town where I won my first Fleur Du Cap. Through these first few opportunities and jumping into it, it lead to everything I have achieved to date. I have won other awards and made major leaps through the opportunities that were given.
After moving to JHB in 2018, work began to be a lot more frequent and I got more access to more work that involved big brands. At this point, I realised that there is an opportunity for me to showcase more than the stand up/MC work that I was known for or booked for. I would take moment to mingle and chat to heads of these businesses and ask for meetings. Some would ask me to MC and I would suggest an alternative that could potentially give them more value for what they were paying for. My first client was Hollard, who has been our longest client to date. I had no staff at the start or the tools. But I would spend hours learning about filming, lights, sound, show running, design and other departments in order to deliver such things myself. I would sleep about 4 hours a day on average as I had to juggle the learning and the work I had acquired while juggling a new born baby. But I got it done.
I registered my own company in 2020 not knowing that this is about to grow beyond what it thought it would be. I was filming online content, running an online game, doing filming for clients and editing in mine and my wife’s bedroom. I had done enough research to get the most basic of equipment and software. Often my son would pop onto screen as he wanted to play and end up featuring for a moment. Many would think that the top of the range gear of software is what holds us back but from experience I don’t think that’s the case. What I had to problem solve for, was for new ideas. People are exhausted of seeing the same thing and having performances that don’t passion. I would spend hours coming up with new concepts. I would call friends and trial run these ideas on them and ask for feedback before pitching it to a client. Once the idea was approved, I would spend days learning new softwares and equipment. Many of the times, I would use the money we saved for rent as working capital. I definitely made that error too many times. I found that there is not problem to big if you do the research, use what you have and plan.
These lessons have now bled into our company. My company is here to speak the consumers language and entertain them at their level of understanding and enjoyment. We are obsessed with finding out what makes the consumer click. Our approach is to entertain the consumer and once we have earned their attention (This is very important to us), that is when we communicate the brand. What we know as human beings is that we hate adverts or being sold a product every single second on social media, radio, internet, TV or print. We play away from it. We want content that resonates. Information is secondary.
Our company is called HD Creative Network. Created in 2019. It was created by creatives so you know that our content is based on what we know is happening on the ground. People can reach us on instagram or on our website www.hdcn.live
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I always come back to what our motto is for the work we do. To communicate at a human level. When you understand that every single person including the CEO is a human being, you start to view business differently. Yes, we have goals to reach and strategies to execute but when you realise that many of us are pushing hard because we have bills to pay, you get to understand that behind the payslip or invoice is a person who has the same worry. By understanding that, you also get to understand that your reputation is not build on beautiful your logo is, how slick your offices look, how many people saw your last product. It all comes down to how you are making people feel.
At HD, we focus on how we make people feel. How we treat each other. How we treat client and their clients. They say that when it’s rotten at the top, it feeds through the company. When everyone is having a wonderful time from the top down, it shows in the work. Just be a nice person. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be stern at times when it comes to clarity and putting the hammer down, but there’s a way to do it that keeps the client and yourself happy. As to how you approach it, it is different for every company and you’ll only figure it out with many failures.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Risk is the only way to learn something new and to reinvent yourself. It is not comfortable but it’s a necessary unknown. You’re told to plan and to look at every angle. Do what works. It is true for somethings but not all cases. When you risk there’s obviously the threat of failure but it’s unavoidable. The lesson is greater. It’s not easy and definitely never stops being horrible in the moment but what follows builds long lasting relationships and invaluable insights.
Recently we were requested to do an event that is known to be very conservative. The client always feared pushing the boundaries. They wanted concepts that were close to what they know. We fully disagreed with the approach and chose to do the opposite. We said all the things that people were thinking but were afraid to say. The CEO was very shocked but the employees enjoyed themselves much more than they ever had. For the first time, they felt represented and that their voices were heard. The client had amazing feedback and acknowledged that at first they had the wrong thought but what we went with was the right decision.
If this went the other way, we would have learned a valuable lesson of listening to the client or learning a lesson of having back content should it be that it is too far out. However, we gained tools that we could use for future events. A lesson may not always be pleasant in the moment but how you move from it dictates the longevity of any company. We’re not scared of being wrong and making a mistake. We extremely concerned about not learning and figuring things out. That comes with with unlearning that everything should be run and that we need to do things a particular way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hdcn.live
- Instagram: @hdcreativenetwork
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HDCreativeNetwork
